


Rest Your Head

by scrapbullet



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Baby Luke, Canon Compliant, F/M, Ficlet, Gen, Introspection, Light Angst, Not Beta Read, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Sleepy Cuddles, baby leia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-16 08:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8095552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapbullet/pseuds/scrapbullet
Summary: ONE; “You know they’re gone, don’t you?” Obi-Wan strokes a finger along a downy cheek. “You feel their loss.”Luke huffs - a momentary pause for breath in the midst of despair. He blinks up at Obi-Wan, too young to see much more than black and white and red, and there is an ache in Obi-Wan’s chest that threatens to engulf him whole.TWO; “Was she hungry?”“Just a touch of stomach upset.”“Did you-”“-use the gripe water? Worked like a charm.”





	1. Rest Your Head

The babe refuses to settle.

Leaning against the wall of his temporary home, old and sand-smooth, Obi-Wan shifts the sobbing baby in his arms, all the better to gently press the tiny head to his chest. Luke snuffles wetly as his fingers flex and tug at the blanket he’s ensconced in, toothless mouth wide and face red in his anguish. 

“You know they’re gone, don’t you?” Obi-Wan strokes a finger along a downy cheek. “You feel their loss.”

Luke huffs - a momentary pause for breath in the midst of despair. He blinks up at Obi-Wan, too young to see much more than black and white and red, and there is an ache in Obi-Wan’s chest that threatens to engulf him whole. 

This child is hope. This child, the son of Anakin Skywalker - _his friend, his brother, his son, his family_ \- is one of two children who must fight against the evil of the Empire. Luke’s destiny, as well as Leia’s, was written the moment Obi-Wan failed on Mustafar. _Stars_ , it was written long before even then; when Palpatine deceived them all and caused Anakin’s Fall to Darkness.

Luke propels his body backwards, surprisingly strong for a youngling of four weeks. He stares upwards at the homestead with interest, tongue working in and out as if searching for the hunger-quenching teat of a bottle. Obi-Wan rearranges Luke in his arms, Luke’s neck and head supported carefully in the crook of Obi-Wan’s elbow.

“So long as you’re clean, warm and fed you’re a content one, aren’t you?” Obi-Wan hums, and with practised ease he plucks the bottle from the table - Luke, quite like his Father, is fussy about eating and had taken only the barest amount of formula a short while ago - and gently inserts the teat into Luke’s waiting mouth. 

The babe makes a little moue of intrigue, before latching on once more to feed.

“There, there,” Obi-Wan muses with a rueful smile, “there was no need for all that fuss, hmm?”

Not for the first time he questions the veracity of separating the twins; their bond, strengthened by the Force, is undoubtedly causing them emotional pain. Luke _knows_ , as does Leia, no doubt. It’s unfortunate that their distress is secondary to their safety and survival.

What Darth Vader would do if he knew of either one of them...

Fate will not be kind to the children of Skywalker, Obi-Wan is all too aware. 

And yet, as strong in the Force as little Luke is, right now he is entirely dependent on a loving parent-figure to survive. Suckling greedily at the milk formula Luke frowns upon realising that the source of his nourishment is empty, but does not do more than grumble as Obi-Wan awkwardly burps him.

“Oh Master, if only you could see me now...” Wiping milky vomit from Luke’s mouth Obi-Wan settles the youngling into the travel cot, unable to quell his own fond smile at the sight of a sleepy baby blinking up at him. 

For now, Luke is to rest, but tomorrow... tomorrow they must make the final push to the Lars’ homestead, and Obi-Wan has much to plan for.


	2. Close Your Eyes

“Was she hungry?”

“Just a touch of stomach upset.”

“Did you-”

“-use the gripe water? Worked like a charm.”

Breha smiles sleepily, a vision of beauty even at this ridiculous hour - but of course, Bail finds his wife beautiful at any hour, day or night. Stretching out in the expanse of their bed she motions toward Bail - or rather, the baby held securely in his arms - and isn’t content until Bail settles little Leia onto her chest, arms lifting to embrace and stroke the fine, dark hair on the babe’s head. 

The utter joy and _love_ on Breha’s face makes her all the more radiant. 

Leia suckles at her fingers, quiescent, eye lids drooping. The low, muffled mewl that escapes her is content, and with utter ease she falls asleep cradled against Breha’s heart, certain in the knowledge of her parents care and attention. 

Breha hums under her breath, a hand placed on Leia’s back to measure each rise and fall. “How was the funeral?”

Bail, in the midst of shucking off the cotton sleep-shirt, pauses. “It was... The flowers were lovely. She’d have appreciated the effort.”

Padme’s funeral. Leia had been theirs for a matter of days before Bail had been forced to leave, his attendance paramount. The procession through Theed had shown them all how deeply loved Padme had been by the people of Naboo, and beyond, and as she’d been interred in her family vault Bail had ached with a fierce desire to turn back the hands of time; to right a wrong that should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. 

Sliding beneath the covers Bail tucks them both close; his new, fragile future. From Padme’s death had come Leia, and she is so very, very easy to love. 

“Sometimes,” Breha comforts, pressing a chaste kiss to his chin, “the universe isn’t kind. She will be missed... but she lives on in the hearts and minds of others.”

There is truth in what his dear wife speaks, Bail knows, and yet the sting of losing a friend, ally and confidante is hard to soothe. “I wish we’d taken the boy as well,” he admits, and feels the heavy sigh Breha exhales in the closeness between them. “Raised them together, as she’d want them to be.”

But they have no use for wishes, not in this universe.

Leia sighs, shifting in her slumber and placing her fist, wet with saliva, on Bail’s cheek. 

“She cried incessantly, when you were gone. For her brother, I think, and a life lost.” Breha dabs delicately at the spit with a corner of the sheet.

Though not borne from her body, Breha is attuned to Leia in the way of many mothers. She dotes on Leia with adoration and fascination, refusing to allow the nannies to change so much as a single dirty diaper, spending hours simply counting tiny toes and watching Leia sleep.

There is no doubt in Bail’s mind that Breha would have happily done the same for Luke, had he been here.

Luke, however, is quite safe in a place even Bail knows not.

“It is an impossible situation, my love. They are... so very important.”

“I know,” Bail utters, resigned, “but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

One day. One day, when Leia is older... then they will tell her the truth of it all. Perhaps her brother will sit by her side, then, when Bail and Breha shatter their world apart and piece it back together with memories of the past. Perhaps they will understand.

One day.


End file.
